Press Release: October Event Focuses on street Children in History, Street Children in Hudson

For Immediate Release October 8th, 2015

Contact: 
Brian Buckley, Hudson Site Coordinator, Prison Public Memory Project
Email: brian@hudsonprisonmemory.org
Phone: (719) 213-8549

Kristi Gibson, Author/Independent Scholar
Email: kgibsone@gmail.com

On Wednesday evening, October 14th, 2015 the Prison Public Memory Project and the Hudson Area Library will be hosting an intriguing event at the Library featuring an illustrated talk and audience discussion about “street kids” in history and in Hudson.  “Guttersnipe”: A Social History of the American Street Child will feature local author and independent scholar Kristi Gibson who will talk about how street children in the 1800s – newsboys, bootblacks, child minstrels and apple girls – lived and survived on the streets of cities like New York. Covering a broad scope of U.S. history, she will discuss and answer questions from the audience about how images, stories and social policies toward street children shaped our understanding of these kids, shedding light on both the lives of poor children and a rapidly changing society. Many of these youth ended up in jails and prisons like the one in Hudson. There will also be time for discussion about how Dr. Gibson’s work about the history of street children might apply to Hudson and other small cities with ‘homeless’ youth today.

Dr. Kristina Gibson holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Colorado at Boulder.  She is the author of Street Kids: Homeless Youth, Outreach and Policing New York’s Streets (2011, NYU Press) and is currently researching a second book on the social history of the American street child. She is the owner of Magpie Bookshop in Catskill, NY.

"GUTTERSNIPE": A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN STREET CHILD

Wednesday, October 14th, 2015
6:30 - 8:00 PM

Hudson Area Library
400 State Street, Hudson, NY 12534

*THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC*

ABOUT THE PRISON PUBLIC MEMORY PROJECT: Using history, art, and dialogue to engage people from all walks of life in conversation and learning about the role of prisons in society, the Prison Public Memory Project (prisonpublicmemory.org) works with communities to discover, preserve, interpret and honor the memories of those who worked at and were incarcerated in correctional facilities. 

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For more information, visit our events page